President Trump signs pair of executive orders on immigration

Posted: 2:30 pm Wednesday, January 25th, 2017

By Jamie Dupree

Fulfilling a campaign promise, President Donald Trump signed two executive orders on Wednesday designed to tighten security along the southern border with Mexico, and to get tough with those who are living illegally in the United States by fully enforcing existing immigration laws.

The first executive order is an effort to push ahead with Mr. Trump’s plans to finish construction of a U.S.-Mexico border wall, one of the most popular campaign pledges he made in 2016.

“We are going to restore the rule of law in the United States,” the President told a receptive audience at the Department of Homeland Security.

One thing that was not acted on by the President was any change in President Obama’s immigration actions related to DACA, the program that allows younger people brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents to stay here, without the threat of deportation.

Spicer said again today that DACA could be dealt with at a later date.

Opponents of illegal immigration hailed the President’s moves.

“President Trump’s executive actions are an historic, much-needed course correction in America’s approach to immigration policy, which has been on autopilot for decades,” said Dan Stein, the head of the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

“For the past eight years, our country suffered under the Obama Administration’s lax enforcement of immigration laws,” said Rep. Robert Goodlatte (R-VA).